Behind Every Man
by Rae Seddon
Summary: April finds that it's hard to hate someone when they show up on your doorstep bleeding. Even if it is 3 o'clock Monday morning


To call it the "city that never sleeps" would be presumptuous and naïve, not something a native would believe for a well, New York minute. The city does sleep, just not very well or for very long. At most you get two or three hours each night when the lights dim to something less than cabaret and the sound of cars with their squealing breaks and sonorous bass-beats dies down to what you'd expect to call "quiet" or at the very least, "distant."

I'd be asleep now too, if it weren't for him. I can't see him or know exactly where he is, but when he's out there, I know. I know because part of him is always here, in this apartment overlooking the Soho slums. He leaves traces of himself wherever he goes, be it a scuffed and splintering hockey-stick stashed in a corner or the lingering smell of sweat and car oil. And to be quite honest, I hate him for it.

I am a single, wildly successful female news anchor for one of the highest-rated evening news programs in the country, and he's out there risking his neck so there's at least one less murder or break in, accident or other nameless human tragedy that I'll have to report on the next day. He's protecting me. I came to the realization not long after we first met and told myself that I'd resign to it. But I can't. It hurts. I don't like the feeling of knowing that someone in this god-forsaken waste of human filth and detritus thinks I'm worth getting hurt over.

But then again, he isn't the first person to think like that. Anyone more ignorant would call them, "guardian angels" or "knights in shining armor" but I'm far too wise to the tricks this old city can pull to make that assumption. It's not like he, or they, have been there every time I needed them. It's a paradox really, that in a city where it's impossible to be alone, that's all we really are. I'm no exception.

Just when it seems I can finally fall asleep, there is a buzz at the door. A harsh voice carries over the speaker, "April? Babe, you there?" Surprised, I stride to the intercom and press the button.

"Yeah," I don't bother disguising the resentment in my voice. It's him. "It's three-thirty in the morning Casey, what do you want?"

There's a pause, and closer to the speaker, I can hear that he is breathing raggedly, unevenly.

"For you to let me up. "

"What's wrong?" I ask, concerned. His voice is not what it should be, the distortion of the intercom aside; it is raspy and deliberately enunciated.

"You'll see if you let me up."

I press the button to unlock the front door of the building and wait, tossing on a robe and putting my hair up in a clasp to mask its uncharacteristic limpness. When the sound of the elevator grille being violently shoved aside in the hall reaches my ears I open the door but keep the chain locked in place. It opens a few inches and the sight before me is enough for me to fumble the door open all the way. He stands there, beaten, bloody, leaning on a dented wooden Louisville Slugger baseball bat like a gentleman's cane. His shoulder-length dark hair is laced with dirt and sweat, and his usually mischievous brown eyes are glazed with the beginnings of shock. With a jolt, the sounds of the chain lock scraping against my pinewood door brings me back from the horror standing before me.

He smiles as I help him over the threshold of the door and maneuver him to a spare fold-out futon bed shoved into a well-used corner of the apartment. I have to pry the bat out of his hands before lowering him onto the bed.

"What _happened?_" I want to be able to say more, but the words are not there.

"S' dangerous city," he says simply.

"Really?" despite his condition I cannot help the sarcasm in my voice, "Man, what does it say when even the vigilantes aren't safe? Tell me, were any of the perpetrators wearing blue and carrying badges, 'cause that might explain a thing or two."

He smirks at me from his place on the futon and for the first time I recognize the tell-tale signs that give his injuries away as more than just a typical New York street scuffle. His shirt is cut cleanly in places, and the skin beneath the cut is caked in dried blood: only a long, sharp blade could have made a mark like that.

"A sword did that."

He nods.

"You going to need a doctor?" I ask casually. Despite the alien nature of his visit, my composure is surprisingly intact. If it were anyone else I would have rushed to call 9-1-1 and get it over with, but maybe there's something I think I can gain from keeping him here with me? He shakes his head to my question, but I can tell the effort makes him dizzy so I go to find the first-aid kit along with a fresh bottle of rubbing alcohol and witch hazel. Over the years I've become something of a student of the old ways. A copy of "Back to Eden" is never far from the ibuprofen.

I begin with the smallest and most delicate of the wounds, incase one would prove far more threatening than the gashes and scrapes that adorn the rest of his body. He watches me through his glassy eyes, never once taking them off of my face no matter how much I feel his body spasm in pain. He never once looks at the wounds, but treats them with a sort of measured indifference.

"Why do you put yourself through this?" I ask, noting old scars that should have faded but didn't due to lack of proper care. "It's not like there's any real need. Try as you might there will always be those poor, self-punishing souls who will always justify the need to hurt others. Nothing you can do to change their lives."

"Because I have to."

"No you don't," I reply, sharper than intended, "I just told you that you needn't bother with it."

His smile widens to something that under typical circumstances would be wry, victorious, amusement.

"It's not for them or me, but for someone who will never understand."

"Why won't he?"

"She," Casey corrects.

"Why won't _she?"_ I repeat.

Casey shrugs and his grin diminishes a little, "I don't know. I think she's scared to think she can mean that much to another human being. She sees a lot of the worst that people can do to each other, right? I think it makes her nervous to think that if someone cared for her they'd do something really stupid for her sake, in her name, ya know?"

I nod, saying nothing. As far as I am concerned the person he speaks of is not me. I am not afraid of being cared for. I'm afraid of being seen as weak or unable to defend myself. And that's also why I still, and will always hate the man before me. He surrenders himself to my care with a grace and confident poise that is positively agitating. He _knew_ I would not refuse to help him if the need was there. For some time we sit in silence as I inspect the larger of the cuts. Eventually his eyes begin to clear and a healthy pallor returns to his face. I can hear the city around us beginning to reawaken, little by little. The cars are the first to fade in, and the flash of headlights leaking through the blinds adds a sense of frenetic movement to our stationary scene. After some time he is fully bandaged and he gropes for his bat, attempting to stand.

Feeling more than a little vindictive at the loss of sleep I've endured in the face of a Monday morning, I watch him struggle to the door and wedge it open using a combination of the bat and his right shoulder.

"Oh, and there's one more thing, about this babe," Casey says on his way out.

"What?"

"She'll never admit that something is other than how she sees it. So I can never hope for her to know that what I'm doing isn't some comment on how she's a woman and can't look out for herself. I know she can. But I don't think she understands that there are people who protect something not 'cause it's pretty, but 'cause it's prettier when it's protected, and they know it's safe because of something they've done. That's all. Thanks for the patch up, April."

And he disappears, leaving me with the uncomfortable feeling that comes when it becomes apparent that someone knows me much better than they should. Suddenly, someone I barely know or don't know at all is privy to all of my secrets, all of my fears and hopes; everything, literally, is on the table in plain view. And I'm left wondering when and how it all happened.


End file.
